Friday, Kocharian’s Bloc Plans Anti-Government Rally • Gayane Saribekian Armenia - Thousands of opposition supporters led by former President Robert Kocharian (center) and senior members of his Hayastan alliance march to the Yerablur Militarty Pantheon in Yerevan, September 26, 2021. The main opposition Hayastan alliance said on Friday that it will rally supporters in Yerevan soon in an effort to thwart what it described as more Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan planned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. Senior representatives of the bloc led by former President Robert Kocharian claimed that Pashinian is ready to cede more territory to Baku, including by agreeing to a land corridor between the Nakhichevan exclave and western Azerbaijan passing through Armenia’s Syunik province. “We believe that what is happening will lead to a new capitulation agreement,” said Ishkhan Saghatelian, a deputy parliament speaker. “Armenia will be making new concessions. In order to prevent that, pan-Armenian forces must form a national resistance front to show the entire world, including this government of evil, that our people disagree with this course and are fighting against it.” “We need to explain all this to people because [Pashinian] is continuing to fool people [with talk of peace.] After sending people to their death [in Nagorno-Karabakh last fall] he is now intimidating them with [warnings about] another war,” he told reporters. Armenia - Opposition leader Ishkhan Saghatelian attends a session of the National Assembly after being elected one of its three deputy speakers, Yerevan, August 6, 2021. Saghatelian said that Hayastan is now holding consultations with other opposition groups and will announce the date of its rally next week. He would not say whether it will be a one-off protest or the first in a series of anti-government rallies. Pashinian visited the Armenian parliament on Thursday to meet with deputies representing his Civil Contract party. According to one of those lawmakers, Gagik Melkonian, Pashinian assured them that he is not planning any territorial concessions to Baku. Melkonian shrugged off the opposition allegations about such concessions, saying that Kocharian’s bloc simply wants to seize power. He said the authorities are not worried about Hayastan protests. “Their place is the street,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Let them fight on the street. Nobody will be standing by their side.” Armenia - Supporters of former President Robert Kocharian and his opposition alliance attend an election campaign rally in Yerevan's Nor Nork district, June 9, 2021. Saghatelian confirmed that Pashinian’s removal from power remains on Hayastan’s agenda. Kocharian, who had ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, likewise said on October 4 that regime change remains his and his political allies’ key goal. But he cautioned that they must “generate” greater popular anger at the government before trying to topple it with street protests. “The biggest problem is that a considerable part of our people has come to terms with this situation and voted for these ones,” Kocharian said, referring to the ruling political team. He insisted at the same time that a politically active minority of citizens can also pose a serious threat to Pashinian’s hold on power. Pashinian’s Civil Contract party won Armenia’s June 20 parliamentary elections with almost 54 percent of the vote, according to their official results. Hayastan came in a distant second with 21 percent. Its final election campaign rally in Yerevan drew a massive crowd. Armenian Watchdog Alarmed By ‘Curbs On Press Freedom’ • Robert Zargarian Armenia - Ashot Melikian, chairman of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech, at a news conference in Yerevan, . An Armenian press freedom group on Friday expressed serious concern over what it called new restrictions on news reporting imposed by the authorities in recent months. “These restrictions have taken the form of legislative initiatives, rules and regulations, and practical actions restricting journalistic activity,” said Ashot Melikian of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech. Presenting a quarterly report released by his organization, Melikian singled out serious curbs on journalists’ freedom of movements inside the Armenian parliament building which were imposed days after the current National Assembly held its inaugural session on August 2. Under the new rules introduced by parliament speaker Alen Simonian, reporters accredited to the parliament can no longer interview deputies coming out of the chamber or enter a section of the building housing their offices. Simonian, who is a senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party, cited security concerns and the need for greater media respect for parliamentarians. Opposition lawmakers, human rights ombudsman Arman Tatoyan and Armenia’s leading media associations rejected that explanation. Those groups expressed outrage at Simonian’s attempts to block press coverage of an August 11 parliament session that descended into chaos amid bitter insults traded by pro-government and opposition deputies. Security officers entered the press gallery overlooking the chamber and ordered journalists present there to stop filming or photographing the ugly scenes. Armenia - Parliament speaker Alen Simonian talks to journalists, August 25, 2021. “It was an unprecedented and condemnable action,” Melikian told a news conference. “Journalists must be able to show the public what kind of a National Assembly was elected and how each deputy behaves.” Melikian also condemned recent government-backed bills that tripled maximum legal fines for “slander” and made it a crime to gravely insult state officials and public figures. “Nobody is going to defend slanderers or slander in general,” he said. “What we emphasize is that very often strong criticism is interpreted as a grave insult. We all know that officials and politicians regard such criticism as an insult.” The bill on heavier defamation fines was authored by speaker Simonian. President Armen Sarkissian refused to sign it into law in April, asking the Constitutional Court to assess its constitutionality. The court ruled earlier this month that the bill does not run counter to the Armenian constitution. The Armenian authorities’ decision to criminalize slander and defamation was strongly criticized by Freedom House late last month. The Washington-based democracy group said it testifies to a “clear degradation of democratic norms in Armenia, including freedom of expression.” Pro-government lawmakers rejected the criticism. Norway, Moderna Pledge Biggest Vaccine Donation To Armenia Vials with a sticker reading, "COVID-19 / Coronavirus vaccine / Injection only" and a medical syringe are seen in front of a displayed Moderna, October 31, 2020. The Norwegian government and Moderna have pledged to give Armenia more than 620,000 doses of a coronavirus vaccine manufactured by the U.S. biotech company, Health Minister Anahit Avanesian announced on Friday. Avanesian said the Armenian Ministry of Health signed a “trilateral agreement” to that effect with them on Thursday. “Thank you the Kingdom of Norway and the Moderna company for your efforts to overcome the pandemic,” she wrote on her Facebook page. Avanesian said that the European Union will assist in the upcoming shipments of Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine to Armenia. She gave no dates for their delivery. Moderna’s co-founder and chairman, Noubar Afeyan, is an Armenian-American billionaire businessman. Afeyan has financed various charity projects in Armenia. Armenia -- Armenian-American businessman Noubar Afeyan speaks in Yerevan, April 24, 2019 Armenia has already received smaller quantities of vaccines donated by the governments of France, Belgium, Lithuania, China and Russia. Health authorities in the South Caucasus state began using earlier this month 50,000 doses of Spikevax provided by the Lithuanian government. Armenians were previously inoculated only with Chinese and Russian vaccines as well as the Astra Zeneca jab developed by Oxford University. Avanesian said in July that Armenia will buy this fall 50,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine and 300,000 doses of the Novavax jab. Shortly afterwards the Armenian government allocated funds for the purchase of 300,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. None of those vaccines have been imported yet. Armenia - Health Minister Anahit Avanesian is vaccinated against COVID-19, April 28, 2021. The latest donation pledge comes as the authorities in Yerevan are trying to speed up the slow pace of vaccinations in the country of about 3 million amid rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations that have overwhelmed the Armenian healthcare system. As of October 17, just over 403,000 people there received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and only about 185,000 of them were fully vaccinated. Starting from October 1, all Armenian workers are required to get inoculated or take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense. Avanesian said last week that the authorities could also introduce a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to cultural and leisure venues. The Ministry of Health said on Friday that 42 more Armenians have died from COVID-19 in the past day. The ministry also reported five other deaths indirectly caused by the disease. Russia Indispensable For Ending Armenian-Azeri Border Dispute, Says Putin • Nane Sahakian Russia - President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the annual Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, . Armenia and Azerbaijan cannot end their simmering border disputes without Russian mediation and mutual concessions, according to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Putin commented on the aftermath of last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh and Russian efforts to bolster a shaky peace in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict zone during an annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday. “The main thing now is to finally resolve the situation on the [Armenian-Azerbaijani] border, and it’s impossible to do anything here without Russia’s participation,” he said. “We probably don’t need anyone except Russia and the two sides. Why? … Because the Russian army’s General Staff has maps showing the borders that existed between Soviet republics in Soviet times.” Tensions have run high in recent months at several sections of the long border where Azerbaijani forces reportedly advanced a few kilometers into Armenian territory in mid-May. Armenia has repeatedly demanded their unconditional withdrawal. Azerbaijan maintains that its troops took up new positions on the Azerbaijani side of the frontier. Amenia - An Armenian soldier at a border post in Gegharkunik province, July 5, 2021. Moscow proposed later in May that Yerevan and Baku set up a commission on border delimitation and demarcation. It offered to act as a mediator in such talks. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stated at the time that the talks are conditional on an Azerbaijani withdrawal from Armenia’s “sovereign territory.” But he indicated in August that his government is ready to negotiate without any preconditions. Baku has also expressed readiness for such negotiations. They have still not begun, however. Putin, who brokered a ceasefire that stopped the Karabakh war last November, said that while Soviet military maps must serve as a basis of the talks the two conflicting sides should be ready for minor territorial swaps and other mutual concessions. “There are things there that also require mutual compromises,” he said. “Something could be straightened [on the map] in some places and swapped in others.” Armenia - A view of an area in Armenia's Syunik province where Armenian and Azerbaijani troops are locked in a border standoff, May 14, 2021. (Photo by the Armenian Human Rights Defender's Office) Pashinian has for months been facing Armenian opposition allegations that he has secretly agreed to cede major chunks of Armenian territory to Azerbaijan. The prime minister has categorically denied that. Russia is already the sole international facilitator of ongoing Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on opening transport links between the two South Caucasus foes. A Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani task force set up in January for that purpose held a fresh meeting in Moscow earlier this week. Putin stressed on Thursday that Moscow remains committed to a “multilateral format” of achieving a broader normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. He said it is now trying to step up the mediating activities of the OSCE Minsk Group co-headed by Russia, France and the United States. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.